Poll: For Parents of children under 18 years old

[lbjnltx]

Dear parent,

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with who is who on our boards. The names are familiar, but the details get hazy. It has been suggested that if we could find a way of briefly describing our concerns and present that information visually in some way, then it may give us a better perspective of who is who on our boards. This is a simple trial run to see if it works.

There have been recent posts regarding concerns with therapy and therapists, so we tailored our questions to that topic.

The information we gather here may then be of use to others. It may be appropriate for advocates of parents with children with BPD to use, it may be of interest to the therapeutic community to see some numbers. The data we gather may be limited, but it may have the potential to be a powerful source of information.

Finally any newbies to the site can come here to see a brief account of who we are and some issues surrounding our children. It would be comforting to know that there are others in a similar situation, instead of blindly jumping in the way we have all done.

Try to fill it out and let us know what you think.  Tic the box only if the answer is "yes".



Post any extenuating circumstances or additional information that you believe would be pertinent for interpreting the poll results.

1. Does your child attend a 'normal' school?

2. Does your child self harm, threaten suicide or is s/he otherwise engaged in at risk behaviour, such as drug/alcohol abuse?

3. Does your child have other mental health problems apart form BPD?

4. Is your child in therapy?

5. Is your child responding positively to therapy?

6. Is your child diagnosed with BPD?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[inkling16]

My d16 is definitely doing better than she was last spring, after a summer in RTC followed by weekly therapy, in controlling her emotions and dealing with bad feelings. But it's difficult to impossible to get her up in the morning and even though school has been cut to a minimum, she only makes it there about half the time at best. So is therapy helping? I answered yes, but things are mixed.

[lbjnltx]

1. Does your child attend a 'normal' school?

My daughter, now 18 graduated from the Learning Center of our then local High School.  Learning takes place at self pace through online courses on a 1/2 day schedule.  She graduated with the minimum number of credits 1/2 year earlier than her classmates.  The decision to move her there was based on 2 facts... 1) she would be turning 18 seven months before the rest of her class would graduate and there was a high likely hood that she would drop out or fail and 2) her father was dying and she was unable to cope with the current class schedule and attendance requirements

2. Does your child self harm, threaten suicide or is s/he otherwise engaged in at risk behaviour, such as drug/alcohol abuse?

No, not since going into RTC at 13 years old.

3. Does your child have other mental health problems apart form BPD? Yes, dx MDD (major depression)

4. Is your child in therapy?

Not since she graduated high school and moved away from her therapist.  She has expressed willingness to go back into therapy to learn how to cope with stress if she needs to.

5. Is your child responding positively to therapy?

Prior to RTC no.  In RTC yes, after RTC yes.

6. Is your child diagnosed with BPD?

Yes and No... .diagnosed at age 12 with "emerging BPD" and "traits of BPD" through inpatient psychiatric testing.